Off to one side at Everest Base Camp, 150 Chinese mountaineers and soldiers have set up a camp to prepare to take the Olympic torch up Mount Everest and back.

This week in Beijing, Games organizers announced the route of the torch in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, and mountaineers take it over the world’s highest peak in May.

It’s a plan laden with symbolism, both to display China’s control over Tibet and to show off the nation’s prowess as a new superpower.

On the way up the mountain, Chinese able-bodied torch bearers are likely to pass Cato Pedersen, a Norwegian climber with no arms (he uses a hook), and Wim Hof, a Dutchman who is climbing the frigid peak in shorts.

The torch eventually wends its way to more than 100 Chinese cities and towns, and also passes through Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The route announcement has incensed some people in Taiwan, a self-governed island that rejects China’s claim over it. China said the torch will arrive in Taiwan from Ho Chi Minh City and continue on its domestic route through Hong Kong, Macau and the rest of China. Taiwan, which has its own Olympic Committee, wants the torch to come from a third country and leave for a fourth country.

“This is an attempt by China to engineer the relay route so that Chinese Taipei is included in China’s domestic relay route, thereby obviously undermining our sovereign status. We resolutely reject this,” Taipei said in a statement. 

Taiwan media said this is the first time an IOC member has declined to be included in the relay route since the torch relay began in 1920 for the Brussels Olympic Games.